Send us a text Bekah Bottone brings us a much-appreciated update on how her adopted hometown— Tamarindo in Costa Rica —has evolved in recent years. The Pacific coast surf town first came to prominence in Bruce Brown’s 1994 surf movie, The Endless Summer II . At the time, Tamarindo was little more than a village, some great waves, and an airstrip where ground crew had to shoo the cows away so that planes could land. These days, things are different. With much better logistics, development for tou...
May 31, 2023•37 min
Send us a text Karen Lefebvre followed her childhood dream and moved to the idyllic island of Syros , Greece . A chance discovery way back in the 1980s led her parents to an unexpected family stay on the island. Now, prompted by a pandemic, a breakup, wanderlust, and an urge to return to the simple Mediterranean life she experienced as a teen, Karen finds herself harvesting olives, pressing oil, and happily renovating a new home on the very same island that stole her heart all those decades ago....
May 24, 2023•35 min
Send us a text Podcast host, Jim Santos, meets expat Glenda Cole, who quit the stress of a high-powered career in corporate America for a new home , new country, and new life in International Living ’s top-rated retirement destination— Portugal . Glenda describes herself as a typical type-A personality, but her drive to succeed almost killed her. A serious health scare brought it all home to her—she was living to work, not working to live. Having a job that was so pressing that she couldn’t even...
May 17, 2023•33 min
Send us a text Podcast host, Jim Santos, learns all about the surprising sophistication and liveability of Mexico City’s residential districts , as he talks to IL ’s Latin America Correspondent Jason Holland in this week’s episode of Bigger Better World. Jason is not a typical expat, in that he and his wife moved out of the U.S. while they were still of working age, not retirees. In fact, when they first shipped out to their first expat home in Costa Rica , the couple were expecting their first ...
May 10, 2023•36 min
Send us a text If you’ve ever seriously contemplated a move overseas—really considered it, not just daydreaming—then you’ll know all about negative thinking. For every picture in your mind of palm-fringed beaches and waking up to the sound of birdsong…there’s another slew of ‘rational’ reasons why it could never happen. Responsibilities, obligations, the stupefying momentum of routine… Most people never get beyond telling themselves that they’ll make the move ‘When the time is right’… JP and Man...
May 03, 2023•35 min
Send us a text It's pretty quiet on the islands of Greece in March, making it a good time to rent a scooter, get out on the quiet roads, and see what there is to see. That’s exactly what International Living Lifestyle Editor Seán Keenan did in March of this year. March is a lovely time to be in the southern Mediterranean. Winter is retreating, in another few weeks the tourist flights will begin to arrive, and the hospitality industry will be at full tilt until October. But before that happens, t...
Apr 26, 2023•37 min
Send us a text Back in the early days of the Spanish conquest of Latin America, a problem arose. How would Catholic priests, tasked with converting the locals to Christianity, celebrate mass without the necessary wine for the service? The short-term answer was to ship wine over from Spain, but that was hardly practical. The long-term solution (although it wasn’t popular with Spanish wine exporters!) was to plant vineyards in the newly-discovered lands. Where did they plant these vineyards? Belie...
Apr 19, 2023•39 min
Send us a text Read Janet's full article in the January 2023 issue of International Living Magazine here: My Three Weeks Learning Italian in Siena . “I’m too old to learn a new language!” is a phrase we hear a lot at International Living . But it’s based on a misconception. Most of us believe that children have some innate language-learning ability that somehow disappears as we get older. But is that really true? Isn’t it just that we get busier? Or find other things to take up our time? When yo...
Apr 12, 2023•36 min
Send us a text Read Noreen’s full article in the February issue of International Living: How to See the World for Free as a Travel Writer . With no background in writing (her previous career was in nursing), Noreen Kompanik homed in on what it was that she really wanted to do with her life. And it wasn’t nursing. Nowadays, she spends up to 70% of her year traveling the world, and getting paid to write about it. In fact, she joins the Bigger Better World podcast from the Dominican Republic, just ...
Apr 05, 2023•39 min
Send us a text What’s it like to travel the world as a minority? Todd and Damon took to the world together when they decided that a roving retirement fit their inbuilt need for travel and adventure. Together, they lived in 28 different countries over the course of three years, before finally settling down in Mexico ’s premier expat city—the colonial highland showpiece of San Miguel de Allende . In this week’s episode, podcast host Jim Santos delves deeper into Todd and Damon’s experience of cult...
Mar 29, 2023•33 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, host, Jim Santos speaks to expats Todd Hilton and Damon Morris. Todd and Damon took to the world together when they decided that a roving retirement fit their inbuilt need for travel and adventure. Together, they lived in 28 different countries over the course of three years, before finally settling down in Mexico’s premier expat city—the colonial highland showpiece of San Miguel de Allende . Armed with a sheaf of notes they’d taken from an International Li...
Mar 22, 2023•36 min
Send us a text Sarah Firisen first came to our attention at International Living when she got in touch about her very enviable life on the southern Caribbean island of Grenada . Soft-sand beaches, crystal-clear waters for snorkeling, and curry goat-filled rotis…we had to know more! When she wrote a two-page article for the March 2022 issue of International Living magazine, we were simply smitten with her descriptions of an island which combines all the palm-fringed, turquoise water fantasies of ...
Mar 15, 2023•35 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, host, Jim Santos speaks to expat Donna Stiteler. For many years, Donna served as International Living’s Ecuador Correspondent from the city of Cuenca, Ecuador. Cuenca, a highland city built in a steep-sided valley deep in the Andes mountains, is an established expat location. In fact, many would claim that it’s the world’s premier expat city. Due to its elevation and latitude, Cuenca enjoys a dependable, spring-like climate where the temperatures peak at ar...
Mar 08, 2023•35 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, host, Jim Santos speaks to expats Kirsten and Mark Raccuia, whose journey to an overseas life started at an International Living conference back in 2012. At the time, they were convinced that they wanted to move to Costa Rica . As it turned out, the conference whetted their appetite for an entirely different location— Malaysia ! Kirsten and Mark are born travelers, though, and after a few happy years living on Malaysia’s island paradise, Penang , they felt ...
Mar 01, 2023•39 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, host, Jim Santos speaks to International Living France Correspondent Tuula Rampont, who transplanted her life from Southern California to Southern France back in 2010. For Tuula, France came as a surprise. In fact, she originally thought that she wanted to move to Italy. Lazy stereotypes of French people as snooty, arrogant, and cold put her off the idea of even visiting the country. As it turns out, when she did finally visit, she realized just how wrong h...
Feb 22, 2023•39 min
Send us a text Sometimes, events make decisions easier. For Jen Wittman, the lockdowns, election cycle, and social upheaval she experienced in 2020 were enough to convince her that it was time to leave her home in California and search for greener pastures overseas. She’d lived overseas already, so it wasn’t a complete leap into the dark. This time, though, she and her husband had another person to think about—their 12-year-old son. How would he cope with live overseas? What about his education,...
Feb 15, 2023•38 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, host, Jim Santos speaks to Chip Stites, International Living’s Italy Correspondent, who makes his home in the small town of Rieti, Italy. From harvesting olives in a 2,000-year-old grove to singing with the crowds at a basketball match in the town where Kobe Bryant learned to play, Chip Stites has immersed himself deeply in the culture and country of central Italy . It wasn’t a snap decision. He and his wife, Shonna, spent years scouting out their ideal ret...
Feb 08, 2023•50 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, host, Jim Santos speaks to Janice Deerwester, an adventurous and unstoppable single woman in her 70s, who recently moved to Fontainbleu, near Paris, France . Navigating everything from restaurant etiquette (service in France is a lot more relaxed than in the U.S., it seems) to exploring on the excellent public transport, Janice recounts her adventures in her popular vlog, Janice in France . When you take life with such a positive attitude, every day is an a...
Feb 01, 2023•51 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, International Living Mexico Correspondent Wendy Justice meets host, Jim Santos, as she explains just why she moved to the highland town of Querétaro in Mexico . A long-time expat, until recently Wendy made her home on the other side of the globe, in Vietnam. Now, in Mexico, what similarities, and indeed, what differences does she find in her new home? Some things are universal, others are quite the opposite. When an experienced traveler and expat brings fre...
Jan 25, 2023•38 min
Send us a text This week, the podcast features International Living Malaysia Correspondent Keith Hockton. Malaysia, even by Keith’s estimation, is a surprising destination for most North American expats and potential expats. It’s just not on the radar as obviously as somewhere like Costa Rica, Mexico, or Panama. For Keith, that’s a tragic oversight, and he’s determined to make potential expats aware of just how perfect a destination Malaysia can be. A frequent speaker at International Living con...
Jan 18, 2023•50 min
Send us a text This week, the podcast features Global Intelligence Letter Editor Jeff D. Opdyke. An early adopter of the digital nomad lifestyle, Jeff began working remotely long before the COVID pandemic boosted working-from-home into the mainstream. And having that head-start gave him opportunities for travel and expat living—combined with a steady job—that the rest of the world is slowly beginning to become aware of. In a nutshell—why continue with commuting to the city, getting stuck in traf...
Jan 11, 2023•46 min
Send us a text In this week’s podcast, Executive Editor Jennifer Stevens delves deep into International Living’s Annual Global Retirement Index for 2023. Which destinations made the list? Which places lead the world in long-term visas, healthcare options, or cost of living? How affordable is a rental in Greece, or Mexico, or Portugal? Or even, why does International Living rank Italy’s climate higher than Panama’s? Join Jen as she talks through the finer points of the Index, and explains the bes...
Jan 04, 2023•48 min
Send us a text International Living’s Bigger Better World podcast delves into the stories behind the story. This week, the podcast features International Living Panama Editor Jessica Ramesch, who has been living in Panama for over 17 years, but who is seeing the country with new eyes having recently moved from the capital, Panama City, to a sea-view condo in the beach zone of Coronado. Known as the arco seco, or “Dry Arc”, this region of Pacific Ocean coast sees more sunshine and less rainfall t...
Dec 28, 2022•40 min
Send us a text International Living’s Bigger Better World podcast delves into the stories behind the story. This week, the podcast features International Living contributor Kathleen Evans, an experienced world traveler who fled the corporate rat race of her native Texas and now spends most of her year Tamarindo, Costa Rica. The rest of her time, Kathleen travels. Right now, she’s in the Mediterranean island nation of Malta, soaking up sun, history, and southern European cuisine. Other times, she...
Dec 21, 2022•48 min
Send us a text International Living’s Bigger Better World podcast delves into the stories behind the story. This week, the podcast features International Living contributor Bel Woodhouse, an infectiously enthusiastic world traveler and expat who currently calls Cozumel, Mexico, home. The largest of Mexico’s Caribbean islands, Cozumel is some 12 miles off the coast of the Riviera Maya city of Playa del Carmen. Regular ferries connect the island with the mainland, while cruise liners bring a stead...
Dec 14, 2022•41 min
Send us a text International Living’s Bigger Better World podcast delves into the stories behind the story. This week, we take you to Portugal, and follow the adventures of a U.S. couple who were the lucky winners of International Living’s ‘Test Drive Your Dream Retirement Overseas’ competition. Host Jim Santos talks to Chris and Jan Schroder, who traveled to Portugal for a month-long immersion into expat life there, and got to experience the country’s unexpected perks and quirks—from just-caugh...
Dec 07, 2022•48 min
Send us a text International Living’s Bigger Better World delves into the stories behind the story. This week, we take you to the Pacific coast of northern Costa Rica with Senior Editors Suzan Haskins and Dan Prescher. Suzan’s two-page round-up of their recent scouting trip to the lesser-visited shores of northern Guanacaste province appears in the November 2022 issue of International Living magazine: “Miles and miles and miles of the bluest-blue ocean, a smattering of small verdant islands off ...
Dec 07, 2022•37 min
Send us a text Bigger, Better World from the overseas experts at International Living explores safe, welcoming, beautiful—and often little-known—spots on the planet. Places where you could live richer, travel more, invest for profit, and enjoy a jet-set life...for less than it costs to stay home. Each week, host Jim Santos talks with IL’s magazine writers and with a cast of thoughtful characters living interesting lives abroad—from Penang to Porto, Cuenca to Madrid. Smart ideas for richer living...
Nov 28, 2022•55 sec
